Really good post at Mousewords. Here’s a sample:
Being products of the feminist era, we all believe in choosing the time your children are born, and even in choosing whether you have them at all. None of us at the table had children, but many of our friends do and they are happy and doing fine, which they would not be doing if they had them younger. None of us have children, and all of us are productive members of society with good jobs and stellar voting records. All of us–all the women at the table and all that we know in our lives–expect that their relationships with men will be mutual, supportive and loving. And because of this, those of us in relationships are happier than we might have been in the past and those without are not wallowing in shame but reveling in freedom.
All of this is what they want to take away from us, if they take away our basic reproductive rights, and we know it.
On the other hand, there’s: Feminists Stand By Their Man 5/22-23/04.
“…On Wednesday, John Kerry told the Associated Press that he was open to the idea of appointing anti-abortion judges ‘as long as it doesn’t lead to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade…'”
“…Despite the fcta that we won Roe V. Wade under the anti-choice Nixon administration and we did not have abortion providers in over 85% of all counties under Clinton, many see a Democratic Party presidency vital to securing abortion rights. Kerry’s statements kill the myth we are guaranteed pro-abortion judges if he becomes president, it also kills the other argument that ABBers have been promoting: you know, the one that claims that we can build a movement after we get a Democrat in office and that Democrat will do all of the right stuff. John Kerry said that he would be open to appointing anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court only 24 days after what many have said was the largest demonstration in American history. Movements work, but the two party system does not. –Brandy Baker
The post makes it sound like the debate is about whether women should be empowered and liberated, or instead constrained and shamed. I don’t think that is a fair characterization. It would be more accurate to say that pro-life advocates believe that women should be empowered and liberated, but not at the cost of the destruction of the unborn.
Lukas, that assumes that there is no cost to women’s empowerment if abortion is banned. I can see why pro-lifers would like to believe that’s so, but I’m not convinced.
Amp,
I guess I wasn’t being clear. I’m willing to grant that banning abortion will cost women’s empowerment. However, my position is that the cost is worth it. It is not that I don’t value women’s empowerment, but rather that I value women’s empowerment less than I value the life of the unborn.
We aren’t so much disagreeing about the value of women’s empowerment as we are disagreeing about the value of the unborn.
Lukas
From where I sit, to think that women’s right to control their bodies is even up for debate speaks to me of a profound inability to embrace women’s liberation.
I value women’s empowerment less than I value the life of the unborn
Thanks. That’s really super to hear.
Does call into question what other random things are more important than woman’s rights, huh?
Kerry’s statements kill the myth we are guaranteed pro-abortion judges if he becomes president, it also kills the other argument that ABBers have been promoting: you know, the one that claims that we can build a movement after we get a Democrat in office and that Democrat will do all of the right stuff.
Not necessarily. You can have judges who are personally pro-life but so respect precedent and the rule of law as professionals that they wouldn’t overturn Roe v. Wade unless there was some incredible, compelling case.
We’ve even seen this on the present Supreme Court: there are a whole lot of pro-life Justices on there, and they’ve made it quite clear they’re not willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, because it’s the law of the land. They may chip away at the edges (and really, that’s what we need to guard against), but Roe v. Wade is so central to so many lines of other cases on privacy that it’s not going to be overturned outright.
Lukas, pro-life advocates don’t even believe that women should be liberated from getting unwantedly pregnant in the first place. I’d wager that a majority of them also don’t believe that women should have the same rights and responsibilities as men. (You know: the old ‘of course women should get paid as much as men, though they should quit their jobs and stay home as soon as they have babies.’)
“I guess I wasn’t being clear. I’m willing to grant that banning abortion will cost women’s empowerment. However, my position is that the cost is worth it.”
Boy, it’s always really easy to get wound up over rights you don’t have to sacrifice, isn’t it?
But zuzu, haven’t some of those judges you describe been appointed by Republicans ?
Lukas wrote:
>>I guess I wasn’t being clear. I’m willing to grant that banning abortion will cost women’s empowerment. However, my position is that the cost is worth it.
Mooglar beat me to it. I have made this argument time and again in many fora (forums?).
I have NEVER SEEN a “pro-life” politician or spokesperson advocate for criminal penalties for inappropriate siring. I have not seen “pro-lifers” support universal male DNA databases of legal quality (ie, chain-of-custody, and all the details required by courts) for paternity determination. Furthermore, these people do not make themselves known in the child support enforcement debates either. If “pro-life” politicians and spokespeople made these issues front-and-center integral parts of their legislative agendas, I might believe that they truly are not against women’s autonomy at the expense of men’s autonomy.
The interesting thing is that some legal decisions in the past have not shown that restricting men’s rights is less significant than the life of already born children. It would be interesting to see what sorts of men’s rights would be deemed less important than the life of a child. For example, should fathers be forced to donate a kidney to a child who needs one?
I always thought that women in America who got pregnant when they did not want to could prosecute the offender for rape.
Amanda says: “[W]e all believe in choosing the time your children are born, and even in choosing whether you have them at all.”
Would this change if Roe were overturned? I did not realize Roe dealt with forced sexual intercourse. If I am not mistaken, it would take overturning Casey v. PP, repeal of section 1985, and a wholesale belief in fundamental religion by the entire country for women to lose the right to choose the time their children were born and whether or not to have them at all. There are many more steps involved after an overturn of Roe. It will not get overturned because it is safer to regulate abortions than to disallow them. Our country took the same tack with alcohol in the 30’s. It had nothing to do with the alcoholic’s fundamental right to do whatever she wanted with her body. It was just better to regulate it than outlaw it. Come on stop with the rhetoric and say it like it is. Thanks to cases like Casey, sexual abuse laws and policies, and the ERA women have the right to choose when they want to have children. Roe was a way to protect women from back alley abortions. Overturning Roe will not take away a woman’s right to choose when she will be pregnant, but it will take away safety protections for women who choose to terminate their child.
[scratches head]
When did the ERA actually get into the Constitution ?
Nobody ever tells me anything. Amp, I thought we were friends !!
J, until men can be forced to bear children for the wicked crime of having sex, or hell until we even get to the point where we point fingers at men for having sex, then I will reconsider the notion that because a woman has intercourse she is submitting to child-bearing whether she likes it or not.
I always thought that women in America who got pregnant when they did not want to could prosecute the offender for rape.
Did you really think that, or are you just shit-disturbing again? (As I’m quite sure you know that private parties cannot prosecute anyone, I’m guessing the latter.)
It is hard to stop enumerating the factual errors in jstevenson’s post.:
1. There is no ERA in our US Constitution.
2. Rape is prosecuted by the state as any other criminal offense is prosecuted by the state. And “rape” charge involves forcible penetration only in most jurisdictions (non-penetration forced events are generally called “sexual battery”). Rape charges do not take into account whether or not the woman subsequently becomes pregnant.
3. Women who become pregnant as a result of rape – BY THE DEFINITION OF RAPE (see #2) – do not “choose to become pregnant” in the way you seem to mean, “she chose to have sex, therefore chose to be pregnant”.
4. At least 18 states would ban abortion immediately on reversal of Roe v Wade, because those states have not removed existing criminal abortion statutes or because the state legislatures would promptly reintroduce the same statutes the state had before R v W invalidated them.
5. Say we go back to 1970, when New York liberalized its law. The out-of-state people who used the NY law were uniformly middle or upper class folk who could afford several hundred dollars to travel, have the abortion, and afford to take time off without being summarily fired. So, in effect, a statewide ban operates as a TOTAL BAN for poor people who cannot travel.
6. Alcohol was seen as a potential tax bonanza for depression-strapped states, and that was a major contributor to repeal of Prohibition.
Step up to the plate, jstevenson. You can be the innovative crusader for compulsory universal male legal-standard DNA typing for a national database, in preparation for your crusade to establish criminal penalties for non-contracted siring.
And “rape” charge involves forcible penetration only in most jurisdictions
Eh, not the majority anymore, I don’t believe. Some have gone to the Model Penal Code approach of calling it all ‘criminal sexual conduct,’ others call most sexual violence ‘rape’ but cut it up into degrees depending on the conduct.
As you can tell by my name I am a male. I do have some thoughts on reproductive rights. These are just questions. Should the state have control of vaginas or any particular part of the reproductive system? Why?
Feminists don´t neccessarily support reproductive rights:
http://feministsforlife.com/
James, there’s a whole thread on those folks elsewhere. I’m still wondering why a ‘feminist’ group can be neutral on contraception. (Not just abortifacient contraception.)
Well isn’t it nice, when someone comes out saying flat out that a grown and thinking person has less value than an unconscious undeveloped mass of embryonic cells.
That explains how anti-abortion crusaders can justify total disregard for human life while at the same time pretending to be “pro-life”. Because the human life they disregard is female, and females are just containers for future babies, not real persons.
It also explains how anti-abortionist crusaders can be in favour of the death penalty.
The contradiction evaporates, when you start from the premise the life and freedom of a woman has no importance.
I miss beyong younger and clueless, I didn’t know there was still so much disgusting mysoginy around (and racism, and bigotry, all usually go together). Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it. That it has become a political force to be reckoned with, that’s what scary.
Should the state have control of vaginas or any particular part of the reproductive system?
No.
Amanda: Again — you are the bomb! Consensual sex is not a crime for anyone. However, people must take responsibility for their actions. Life is more difficult for some people than it is for others. Does that mean the people who are dealt the “short deck” don’t have to take responsibility for their actions. My point on your rhetoric is that it fails to take into account personal repsonsibility. Just like my family and friends who sit on the corner in West Philly and blame the “white man” for them not being able to find a job . . . it seems as though you are advocating that if Roe is overturned it would be the government’s fault a woman is pregnant. If I am not mistaken the government is not in my bedroom and anything that happens there is because of my choices and not the government making choices for me or my wife. Even if Roe is overturned women are not forced to become pregnant, they do have a choice. That choice (whether or not to have sex) is the most powerful attribute a woman has. With great power comes great responsibility. :-) (You know I say these things just to get a rise outta ya).
Nancy — “Step up to the plate, jstevenson.”
Just to let you know, I put my DNA in the national DNA database in 1999 and I carry my DNA signature around with me everyday. So I have stepped up to the plate.
Some suggestions if Roe is overturned. 1) Check the identification, credit report, and sexual history of your partner before engaging in activity that will cause you the grief and agony of pregnancy; 2) have your partner sign a pre-intercourse agreement where he will agree to take a blood test if you were to get pregnant (better yet, have him submit to you his DNA prior to intercourse); 3) ensure he agrees to pay at least the state guideline child support amount without litigation (throw in attorney’s fees while your at it); 4) make sure he has a job with at least a three year work history (or a multi-million dollar trust fund); 5) don’t sleep with a man who cannot afford to feed his four other kids from three different women that did not heed this advice; 6) don’t sleep with a man until any child you have is PRESUMED to be his (instead of you having to prove the child is his, he has to prove the child is not). Most of these things can be done while still maintaining the passion of the moment. Remember he will agree to anything, he just wants to get laid, so you can pretty much get anything from him and it won’t be ruled as duress (stupidity is not a defense). You may want to put an anti-litigation clause in there where the child support payments go up if he fights the contract.
Even if Roe is overturned women are not forced to become pregnant, they do have a choice
Are you serious? What about women who become pregnant from rape?
jstevenson:
Great. Look at all the things you expect a woman to do before having sex while you bestow no responsibility at all upon the man. Let’s look at this sentence:
“Remember he will agree to anything, he just wants to get laid”
First off, you let the man off the hook because men, of course, are mindless sexual machines with no self-control and all women are virginal and can abstain from sex without a problem. So, of course, the woman is at fault if she has sex with this beast of a man, since she can control herself and he can’t.
Second off, no, not many men will do any of the things you mention in order to get laid. Why should they? Our society doesn’t require any responsibility for sex from him, so why should he put up with some uppity woman who expects some? Try to be at least a little realistic here.
Further, why should men get to sleep around as they will and women not have the same opportunity? They are the ones who get pregnant, but it takes two to tango. So how come pro-lifers’ solutions always involve what the woman should and must do and never put any responsibility on the man?
jstevenson = troll
Jstevenson doesn’t understand squat about how the criminal system works. None of his “solutions” put effective criminal sanction on irresponsible men. If he wants to put criminal sanction on women, we need to spread the grief around. And don’t make me laugh about pre-sex “DNA samples” – without chain of custody, these are worth exactly squat.
Just another cowardly “pro-lifer”.
Please remember to keep things polite, folks!
Jake — Actually, I am a Neanderthal :-)
Mooglar — A man actually has the responsibility, if he wants to sleep with a woman to comply with the agreement. If every woman would heed these steps then men would not be able to sleep around. Women of course can sleep around also, however they bear more risk from their actions than men do. Why is there so much responsibility on a woman, becuase the woman is the most affected by procreation. As is regularly heralded — men should not have any control over a woman’s decision whether or not she will get have a baby. Men only have a few seconds worth of contribution to the child. So if women provide more contribution and are more affected than men, it only makes sense that their responsibility is greater. We can’t have it both ways, men must take equal responsibility for the decision to have a baby (it takes two to tango) or men should not have equal say over the fruits of sexual intercourse (it is the woman’s choice of what she will do with their baby). If that is the stance then the woman must also bear the burden of her choices. If I don’t want to get a girl pregnant then I am not going to have sex with her. If I am willing to take the risk of her getting pregnant for the immediate satisfaction of sexual intercourse then I will take that chance. Women have the opportunity to also make that decision, regardless of Roe.
Nonetheless, contractual suggestions were, of course, made in jest.
If every woman would heed these steps then men would not be able to sleep around.
Yawn. Yes, once again, women are responsible for both our own virtue and the virtue of men. If we cheap tarts just can’t seem to either keep our knees together or to talk men out of wanting to separate our knees, we deserve whatever we get. Ho hum.
Amp, if it looks like a troll, walks like a troll, talks like a troll, etc…
Just to let you know, I put my DNA in the national DNA database in 1999 and I carry my DNA signature around with me everyday.
Was that your choice? Because that seems like a deeply stupid move. Maybe I’m just really paranoid because I suspect there’s some scary stuff lurking in my DNA, but I would worry a lot about the potential for health insurance discrimination.
I tend to agree with Amy, JStevenson – your posts really seem more intended to stir up trouble and spread bullshit than to argue rationally.
I’m putting this in bold so you can’t miss it: JStevenson, you’re banned from posting about abortion or rape on my website for the rest of 2004, and also banned from posting a response to any post discussing abortion or rape. That’ll give me a chance to see if removing you from these threads leads to a substantial improvement in the content and tone of those threads.
You’re free to post replies to other posts, as long as you don’t use that as an opportunity to post about abortion or rape.
I’m depending on you to obey my request voluntarily. (Of course, if you don’t, my next step will be to ban you from posting on “Alas” entirely).
* * *
Meanwhile, other posters should stop posting responses to JStevenson on these topics, since it’s not fair to respond to him when he’s banned from responding in turn. Also, please remember to be polite.
More and more often I realize the term “personal responsibility” is one of those meaningless terms that exists to create a knee jerk condemnation reaction. I find the entire argument about “personal responsibility” to be silly and pointless in a society that is bombing the crap out of another country for reasons we still don’t understand.
Mine is what you might call a “reality-based” argument. There’s never been a magical point in history where three women, 27, 28, & 34, the ages of the women in my post, would be considered taking “personal responsibility” by embracing celibacy and therefore being rewarded by society with jobs and stature. In the past, we would have been considered freaks–nuns at best, but most likely pathetic old maids who no one wants to care for.
Well said, bean.
Sorry about troll-feeding, I got troll-like myself.
But really, I want to see the “pro-life” community answer, without hemming and hawing, the questions:
1. What penalty would you apply to the woman undergoing the abortion?
2. If that penalty is lighter than that of the practitioner, what is your justification for making the first-conviction accessory have a heavier sentence than the woman contracting the abortion-for-hire?
3. What is the penalty for a man who supplies money used for an abortion?
4. Do you plan on a minimum sentence rule? How will you deal with the woman with mitigating circumstances, eg, illness or rape or incest? Will these mitigating circumstances be subject to minimum sentence?
We won’t even go into the national DNA database trope, which is well within technical feasibility but is impossible politically, since it directly challenges this society’s male invulnerability to reproductive consequences.
I have never heard a “pro-life” activist say anything but, the woman is a victim, we need to prosecute the abortion provider who “victimizes” her. Many or most sincerely believe this. Many others undoubtedly know they would have to take the Gileadization of America in steps, and would like to throw the sluts in jail or worse, but know they won’t get anything accomplished politically by scaring off 80% of the US populace.
NancyP, do you have a blog? I love your comments.
But really, I want to see the “pro-life” community answer, without hemming and hawing, the questions:
You’ll never get an answer from “the ‘pro-life’ community,” because it doesn’t exist as a single coherent entity, any more than the “pro-gay-marriage community” does. However, as a pro-lifer (and a gay marriage supporter, but that’s beside the point), I’ll try to give my own answers honestly.
1. What penalty would you apply to the woman undergoing the abortion?
I’ll readily admit that I have not spent a lot of time on this question. Ideally, there should be a fairly broad range of sentences, because a scared 17-year old is not the same as an over-privileged 30-year old. On the other hand, judicial discretion sometimes leads to the well-connected getting sentenced lightly, while others are more heavily punished. I really don’t know what the ideal solution is. However, I think that punishment is somewhat secondary to the actual fact of criminalization, which would a) allow the closing of abortion clinics, the seizure of funds and equipment, etc. and b) present a deterrent to the significant portion of society that would prefer not to have a criminal record, entirely apart from questions of punishment.
2. If that penalty is lighter than that of the practitioner, what is your justification for making the first-conviction accessory have a heavier sentence than the woman contracting the abortion-for-hire?
First, I fail to see how the man wielding the instruments is merely an accessory, unless by “practitioner,” you merely mean “herbalist selling pennyroyal.” Second, because the presumptive motive for the abortionist is money, which is not the case for the woman receiving the abortion. Third, in many, although not all, cases, the abortionist is in a more rational state of mind, and is therefore more responsible for his/her decisions. Fourth, as a practical matter, it may be undesirable to deter women who have received botched abortions from seeking medical treatment with the threat of heavy penalties, while this consideration is less applicable to abortionist.
3. What is the penalty for a man who supplies money used for an abortion?
At least as high as for the woman receiving the abortion.
4. Do you plan on a minimum sentence rule? How will you deal with the woman with mitigating circumstances, eg, illness or rape or incest? Will these mitigating circumstances be subject to minimum sentence?
I would not wish for a minimum sentence rule for the woman (uncertain about the abortionist). As regards mitigating circumstances, I think they should be considered in sentencing. For the specific factors you mentioned, I would say that I support medically necessary abortions. Although I am personally opposed to medically unnecessary abortions in the case of rape or criminal incest, I am uncertain as to the appropriate legal approach, and would be opposed to a criminalization of such abortions, at least for the time being.
We won’t even go into the national DNA database trope, which is well within technical feasibility but is impossible politically, since it directly challenges this society’s male invulnerability to reproductive consequences.
Since when do activists, feminist, pro-life, both, or neither, discard an idea simply because it’s not “politically feasible.” If an idea is a good one, it’s the activists job to make it “politically feasible.” I, for one, am fully in support of such a database. I also think, just as a political maneuver, that it would be valuable to propose a constitutional amendment, that would ban abortion on demand but also require the establishment of such a database, ideally along with government-funded pre-natal care, etc., to see who is actually pro-life and who is not.
Christopher, hand-waving the issue of punishment is exactly why many pro-choicers have trouble taking the pro-life position seriously.
If abortion is murder, then we have already answered that question in the law. You apply the same penalties and consider the same circumstances (what is an “overprivileged 30-year-old,” by the way?) to a woman who aborts as to a woman who kills a living child. Sure, the scared 17-year-old who puts her baby in the Dumpster so Daddy won’t find out and beat her is going to get a different sentence than a middle-aged woman who kills her toddler because her boyfriend doesn’t like the kid.
But in both circumstances, nobody blinks at calling it murder.
What’s really going on here is that attacking women who seek abortions harms your public support. Not too many Americans want to see their wives, or daughters, or sisters getting twenty-to-life (or worse) in prison for having an abortion, so your political strategy is to go after the doctor providing the abortions. It’s got the convenient side effect of allowing conflicted women to dump their guilt: the bad doctor made me do it!
Of course, it’s completely bass-ackwards from the way we look at murder. If I hire a hit man to kill somebody, nobody accuses the hit man of being “more rational” or being more immoral than I because “he did it for money.” Legally and morally, everyone would agree that, yes, I was as evil if not more so to hire the hit man; he wouldn’t have committed the murder except that I deliberately and knowingly got him to commit murder for me.
So explain to me, again, this curious disconnect about actually treating women as murderers for paying a hit man to kill their unborn children.
I checked back to find an answer to mythago’s question. None forthcoming so far.
I suspect it has something to do with the mentality that women are not really fully people–they’re inferior to men–so of course we can’t expect them to be adult and fully responsible for their moral actions.
I’m willing to listen to Christopher explain why that’s not the case, however.
I’m going to jump in with my thoughts on mythago’s question to Christopher. I believe that the reason people are reluctant to view a mom who aborts as a murderer is because we are in a culture that doesn’t value the life of the unborn child as much as one who has been born. That’s why a “hearts and minds” approach (which is typically favored by pro-life progressives) is more important than pursuing laws.
I envision a world where human life is so valued that even the lives of the invisible (like the unborn) are held sacred. When we reach that kind of enlightenment, then we will stop shaming women who become pregnant, regardless of the circumstances. We will adapt our businesses and other institutions to be compatible with life, so that pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and childrearing don’t cause women to lose ground in their educations, careers, and other life pursuits. We will absolutely demand that men take responsibility for their children. When we reach the point that we value life the way we should, we will be just as horrified when a mother aborts as when a mother throws her newborn in a dumpster. And when a mother has to have an abortion for medical reasons, we will grieve the same way we grieve when a baby dies from medical problems.
That is my dream.
I am beginning to really worry–if a woman who aborts is a “murderer”, than it really does follow that a woman who aborts unintentionally, what we euphemistically call a “miscarriage”, is guilty of manslaughter through neglect.
Spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) are extremely rarely, if ever, caused by maternal neglect. If a woman could cause herself to miscarry through neglect, there would be no demand for induced abortions.
Miscarriages are usually caused by defects in the embryo. The embryo itself secretes the hormones into the mother’s system that cause the uterus to remain in a pregnant state instead of having a menstrual period. If the baby doesn’t produce the hormones to maintain its own pregnancy, the mother miscarries.
BTW, since people don’t know me, I just want to mention that I’m not one of those people who thinks women should be denied access to contraceptives.
Joan, I respect that you are expressing your opinions in good faith, but I still can’t stop feeling that *I* dream of a world in which the lives of women are valued to the point where it’s inconceivable that we would guilt them, via ideas about the sanctity of all life, into having children that for myriad reasons they really don’t want to have.
It’s simply not realistic to assume that all women who abort do so because of the financial consequences or social stigma of being an unwed mother. There are many, many other possible reasons. For example, there are 12-year-olds who get pregnant and are in no way physically or psychologically prepared to deal with pregnancy, let along raising a child. Or women who have already had all the children they want to and simply don’t *want* to have to raise yet another. And still other women who don’t want to have any children at all….ever. Just to name a few possible scenarios.
If you’re in those situations, all the financial security and lack of stigma in the world aren’t going to change the fact that you don’t want to have that baby. And having embryos and fetuses raised to the status of the “sacred” is only going to heap more misery and guilt on the heads of women who abort.
Hi Crys,
I don’t believe that a woman is obligated to raise the child herself if she is in a position where she feels unable or really doesn’t want to raise a child. Many women, of course, use the adoption option. The only thing that I think a woman is obligated to do is to allow the pregnancy to continue to the point that the child can live on its own.
If continuing the pregnancy would actually put the woman (or girl) in physical peril, she may indeed need to abort, although good medical care and special attention to nutrition go a long way toward equalizing the risks associated with teen pregnancy.
On the question of someone being psychologically prepared to deal with pregnancy: in my work with pregnant women and girls (prenatal clinic worker, labor & delivery nurse, and midwife), I haven’t seen that the experience of pregnancy itself brings emotional trauma above and beyond whatever violation had caused someone to be pregnant in the first place. With adequate support and counseling in place, I think she can preserve her psychological health without having to abort.
You guys are invited to check out my blog if you want. I haven’t written any pro-life postings yet, but you can look at it just to get to know me. http://lamom.blogs.com/
Joan
The courts have decided already that many birth defects are caused by negligence, so why not expand that into miscarriage? I mean, if a woman skips breakfast or forgets her prenatal vitamins or doesn’t get enough rest, how *not* to prove it wasn’t her fault. If we accept that a woman should turn her body over to the fetus whether she likes it or not, why not her freedom?
I think we are in agreement that in reality there is an obvious difference between a woman failing to take perfect care of herself and a woman taking action that is intended to terminate her pregnancy. The question is whether the legal system would be able to blur that line and punish women for failing to be perfect.
I think science is on our side in that regard. It is a clear that perfect self-care is not required to maintain a pregnancy (if it were, none of us would be here), so a woman who doesn’t do every last thing the doctor ordered could not reasonably expect that her baby is going to die.
When you mention birth defects being caused by negligence, do you mean negligence through action or through inaction? Are you talking about cases where women are doing clearly dangerous things (e.g. recreational drug use)? Now THAT is a thorny issue. That’s a case where the woman is not specifically trying to harm the baby, but at the same time she knows that what she’s doing is really dangerous. That kind of stuff would certainly have potential for lots of legal wrangling and people taking different sides. But otherwise blaming women for miscarriages or birth defects would be clearly unjustified.
I don’t believe that a woman is obligated to raise the child herself if she is in a position where she feels unable or really doesn’t want to raise a child.
Whether or not you believe this, it’s the law. Unless a woman’s parental rights are removed, she is legally and financially responsible for that child, whether or not she wants to. As a midwife and nurse I’m sure you are aware of that.
And I’m astounded that you believe that once the initial violation is over, the pregnancy and childbirth itself is pretty much gravy.
Well, of course neglience and deliberate action are different things. Murder and hitting someone with a car on accident are both crimes, though. Miscarriages wouldn’t be considered first degree murder, but manslaughter, no? If you really think it’s a baby, that is, and this isn’t a matter of punishing women for having sex “consequence”-free.
Also, since illegal abortion means that women will be forced to try to abort at home, how will you prove the difference between an “innocent” miscarriage and a DIY abortion? I mentioned on my blog a story told to me about a woman who induced miscarriage by throwing herself down the stairs. That’s a deliberate abortion, but I imagine she just lied to the doctor and told him that she fell. What then? Or are her broken bones enough punishment?
(I don’t know to do italics here, so I’m setting off in quotes the parts that are from previous comments)
“Unless a woman’s parental rights are removed, she is legally and financially responsible for that child, whether or not she wants to.”
But if the woman chooses not to raise the child she can relinquish her parental rights and have the baby adopted.
“I’m astounded that you believe that once the initial violation is over, the pregnancy and childbirth itself is pretty much gravy.”
I don’t mean that pregnancy is easy, but a previous commenter had talked about a woman being psychologically incapable of coping with pregnancy. In my experience, continuing a pregnancy under adverse circumstances does not push women to a psychological breaking point.
“Miscarriages wouldn’t be considered first degree murder, but manslaughter, no?”
No. Skipping a meal or pulling an all-nighter will not kill a healthy fetus (and don’t get me started about prenatal vitamins; I think they’re way overrated, but that’s another subject). Miscarriages are not manslaughter because they are not caused by any such run-of-the-mill maternal actions.
Determining the difference between a spontaneous miscarriage and a self-induced abortion could indeed be difficult or impossible. You are right that passing more and more laws will not stop abortions from happening. That’s part of the reason why I believe that the way to move toward an abortion-free society is through changes in cultural attitudes, not through laws and law enforcement.
This reminds me of the prostitution discussion: if only rape laws were followed. If only we could eliminate child abuse. If only we could eliminate sexism! If only this. If only that. Then prostitution wouldn’t be the demeaning thing it is.
The essential flaw in your argument, Joan, is that you’re still requiring the woman to carry a fetus for nine months. You’re putting it down to mere inconveniance for the greater good. Why do we regard womens’ rights to inviolable bodily integrity as being something that always falls to the greater good? How come we’re not constantly invading mens’ bodies that way?
Pregnancy is the singular situation where pursuing inviolable body integrity could mean taking the life of another person. I believe that not killing another person is a principle that is even more inviolable.
I think my comments on this topic (which started when I responded to a question that someone wanted to get a pro-lifer’s point of view on) have gone full circle, from the overall principle down to specific points and then back to general principles. I probably don’t have a lot more to offer that would not be just repeating the ideas I’ve already expressed. I think I’ll go back to lurking unless there is anything that anyone specifically wants to hear from me.
Again, anyone who wants to get to know me can do so at http://lamom.blogs.com/
Joan
“Pregnancy is the singular situation where pursuing inviolable body integrity could mean taking the life of another person. I believe that not killing another person is a principle that is even more inviolable.”
Pregnancy is yet another situation where yet another person’s rights take precedence over a woman’s. Not that new and exciting at all.
Actually, as I understand Joan’s position (and perhaps I’m mistaken), she’s not calling for a legal ban on abortion; just for a cultural change where women and girls would still have the right to abortion, but would voluntarily choose not to have abort.
If I’m right about Joan’s position – which maybe I’m not, she’s a little vague about whether or not she thinks abortion should be legally banned – then she’s not advocating taking away women’s legal rights, just changing the culture. If that is her position, then I don’t agree with it, but I think it’s better than what 99% of pro-lifers advocate.
Amp, yes I also agree that Joan’s ideas are nowhere near the majority of pro-lifers I’ve heard. That’s why I’m trying really hard not to come across like she’s “The Enemy”. But, like you, I don’t agree with her position….in fact, I REALLY REALLY don’t agree with it.
Joan, like I said, I don’t want to treat you like the Bad One here, but the point that a given woman who becomes pregnant–*regardless* of how that happened–might, for any number of reasons, not wish to carry to term seems to get lost in your argument. I agree very much that we need to radically change attitudes towards the value of motherhood, children in general, and towards supporting mothers and children as a society. I’m with you on that. But, I’m still convinced that even after having done that, there will still be lots of women who *just don’t want* to be mothers. And these women will want to terminate–no matter how much support there might be available to them. And that is something that pro-lifers, sooner or later, are going to have to accept.
The only way that it would be any different is if we get to the mindset where women just accept that our primary function in life is to serve as incubators. Which is not a world I would want to live in.
For instance, no matter how much financial and social support there was available, if I became pregnant I would abort. I don’t want a baby. Period.
Joan>>I don’t mean that pregnancy is easy, but a previous commenter had talked about a woman being psychologically incapable of coping with pregnancy. In my experience, continuing a pregnancy under adverse circumstances does not push women to a psychological breaking point.>>
There is another issue to consider: the psychological impact of being _forced_ to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
Pregnancy is the singular situation where pursuing inviolable body integrity could mean taking the life of another person.
“Could mean” is not enough for me to agree to force women to carry to term, especially when you consider the logical implications of that position.
A woman can give up her parental rights if somebody else takes them up. There is no “paper abortion” where you can cut off your parental obligations and leave the child in limbo until somebody else comes along. And until that happens, the mother is on the hook.
And if the father is involved, the mother does not have the right to walk away. If I had a baby, I could not legally tell my husband “Sorry, the kid’s all yours, I sign off.” You can’t half-adopt a kid.
By the way, if pregnancy doesn’t push women to the breaking point, then what is this “post-partum depression” that I hear so much about? I would think that Andrea Yates drowning her children would be my definition of “breaking point”. Not to say that’s most women’s experience but it’s definitely one more reason women should be allowed to decide for themselves, as some will be able to conclude that they aren’t mentally stable enough to have more children.
Joan>>I don’t mean that pregnancy is easy, but a previous commenter had talked about a woman being psychologically incapable of coping with pregnancy. In my experience, continuing a pregnancy under adverse circumstances does not push women to a psychological breaking point.>>
Not to mention the significant selection bias. Assuming that you work in an area where abortion is legal, you’re working with women who have chosen not to abort. They must have considered personal coping ability, and decided that they were capable of carrying their pregnancies to term.
Oh, and finally–given your anti-abortion, pro-shame stance, I dunno how willing I’d be to convey misgivings and unhappiness to you, were I pregnant.
I believe that the reason people are reluctant to view a mom who aborts as a murderer is because we are in a culture that doesn’t value the life of the unborn child as much as one who has been born
Yeah, shame about that. Let’s value a fetus more than the woman it’s in. She’s already born. She’s adult. She doesn’t want to be pregnant.
Finally, all your solutions about ‘absolutely insisting’ on some rules for men are just so much hot, useless air. I’ll tell you what. Get those in place FIRST, not promise it for later once you get abortion outlawed. If men actually did that shit, there wouldn’t be as many abortions. If men didn’t have their socially-sanctoined rights to free sex and hobby fatherhood, then all the burden woulnd’t be on women.
Like I said, fix them first. Then get back to us. Until then, don’t promise to fix stuff you can’t or haven’t done yet. I want to see this crap done now before I start surrendering my rights.
“if pregnancy doesn’t push women to the breaking point, then what is this “post-partum depression” that I hear so much about?”
Haven’t women both committed suicide and killed their children due to post-partum depression?
And I don’t buy the idea that women can always handle pregnancy, no matter their feelings about being pregnant. I know that if I were pregnant, for any reason, and were being forced to carry to term with no way out, I would be in very deep depression. And if I were in that world that Joan dreams of where there genuinely were no way for me to terminate and it was taken for granted that I would just have to deal with it, I’m not at all sure I wouldn’t become suicidal.
Haven’t women both committed suicide and killed their children due to post-partum depression?
The wife of a guy on my BIL’s boat killed their baby due to post-partum depression while he was at sea. It was just awful.
I have to admit to occasionally dreaming of a world where there are artifical wombs and it’s possible to transfer an embryo from natural to artificial at any point during its development.
That would have the side benefit of sorting the pro-lifers into the ones who want to save the precious unborn and the ones who want to punish those evil sexual women.
Joan, re: the psychological breaking point:
What about a woman who was chronically mentally ill had to choose between taking her meds or carrying her pregnancy to term? If she goes off her meds to keep the fetus safe she might hurt herself (and by extension, the fetus)? If she stays on the meds, it might hurt the fetus and she may need to abort. The pregnancy could aggravate her mental health condition.
“That would have the side benefit of sorting the pro-lifers into the ones who want to save the precious unborn and the ones who want to punish those evil sexual women.”
Given that the former category contains 100% of pro-lifers, and that the latter category is empty, there wouldn’t be much “sorting” to do.
You dream too much, Jack. :/
Hi! I haven’t looked at this forum for a couple of days, but I see my comments are living on after me.
I guess one of the things about this format is that sometimes people see the later comments and haven’t always seen comments that came before it.
“Finally, all your solutions about ‘absolutely insisting’ on some rules for men are just so much hot, useless air. I’ll tell you what. Get those in place FIRST, not promise it for later once you get abortion outlawed.”
In my earlier comments I had said that changing the cultural climate is way more important to me than what laws are on the books. I mean, look at what a great job laws have done in dealing with things like drug addiction. (Not that I’m comparing abortion to drug use, I’m just saying that in some areas legislation is not much of an answer.)
That’s part of the reason why I have never in my life voted for a Republican. The fact that they might pursue anti-abortion laws means so little to me compared to the fact they will take huge amounts of money that should be going to feed hungry folks and use it instead to make weapons of mass death.
If anyone has a clinical interest in it, I’ll mention that it is generally recommended that women on psychiatric meds continue their medications during pregnancy. The potential harm from the meds is not as great as the potential harm if the mother becomes mentally unstable.
Jack, if that were true, you would never hear anyone argue that it’s OK for a rape victim to kill her unborn baby, and every pro-life group in America would fully support nonabortifacient contraception.
Having been a pro-lifer at one point (I’m all better now–you can hardly see the marks), I can tell you what I’m sure you already know, which is that issues about sex and women’s behavior ARE very much mixed up in pro-life sentiment.
Joan’s comments are not so much offensive to me as part and parcel of utopian world that I sure WISHED I lived in.
But why stop with a world where all fetuses are respected. Gotta dream big here. A world where all people are respected. Where all people are fed and given shelter. Where war, murder, assault, rape, etc. are unknown. Where mutual respect of all human beings is the given. Where banana splits can be consumed all day with nary a pound of weight gain (sigh). Sure, ok. When we get all this stuff, I’ll rethink my pro-choice position.
However, back in the reality-based community, I am troubled by various correlations that anti-abortion policies tend to be aligned with, whether in predominantly anti-abortion U.S. states (like Mississippi) or countries. Tend to have the highest maternal and infant death rates. Relatively fewer resources devoted to prenatal and maternal health care. Less commitment to health care for all citizens. Higher teen pregnancy rates. And, it seems, higher abortion rates overall. (Yes, an apparent paradox: where abortion is outlawed, the number of abortions goes up, albeit of the illegal kind). Interesting thought: if you sincerely want to make abortion rare, make it legal! Provide decent health care for all citizens! Provide an adequate safety net for all pregnant women, so those who are pregnant really feel that they have a choice. Some feel that they don’t have a choice because they don’t see that they have any way they can support a child, even if they would like too. And how about more services for battered women, while we’re at it, since a number of women are pressured into abortions by battering partners, or fear the consequences of having a baby with a battering partner around and demanding his “rights.”
Just a few thoughts.
The MRM doesn’t argue the idea that women should have reproductive rights. What they do argue is the requirement for a men to pay for 18 years because a woman decides it’s her time to have a child. You would feel the same way if the roles where reversed. Men need the option to back out of supporting the child if the woman decided to have it against his will. This is the ONLY way this can be fair.
The will of the woman doesn’t trump the child’s right to be supported by both his parents.
I don’t think “against his will” is the most common scenario, or even a common scenario at all, for male-undesired pregnancy. Female rape of males is rare. Rational males know that pregnancy is a predictable result of PIV sex, and of a lot of things surrounding PIV sex. Ergo, a male who engages in PIVish sex may not desire a child, but certainly cannot be said to be exerting his will to prevent that outcome. At best, he’s trying to avoid a predictable outcome while still enjoying the process of the primary method of achieving that outcome – understandable in the desire, but noncompelling as an argument of will-contradiction. (I believe the same calculus holds true for women.)
For example, if I freeclimb the steepest portion of the Grand Canyon, and subsequently fall to my death, it’s not really accurate to say that happened “against my will”. Against my preference, most likely; against my prediction of likely outcome, I’ll even buy. But clearly I willed a set of futures in which my death was one very realistic possibility, by signing up for the climb and conducting the necessary physical maneuvers, uncoerced.
“Tricked into pregnancy” is a much more interesting, because much more conceivably common, scenario. Women, being human beings with full agency, lie and manipulate just as much as any other members of our species. And as a species, we lie and manipulate a LOT. So it surely happens, logically-predictably (as sure as a year of heavy PIV sex equals a baby for most people, whether they want one or not). Empirically, I know it happens at least sometimes, because it happened to one of Barry and I’s mutual friends, with his now-ex-wife. So no argument there; I’d even accept that it’s possible that it’s a relatively, if not overwhelmingly, common occurrence. People are tricky fuckers.
It seems clear to me that a born child has the right to support from his biological parents, failing absolutely extraordinary circumstances. It also seems clear that a man tricked into fathering a pregnancy, who can prove that claim, should have a legitimate cause of action in civil court against the woman who has committed some variety of fraud upon him, depending on how she “arranged” the pregnancy. (Sabotaging condoms is different than falsely claiming infertility is different than giving a blow job and later using stored sperm to self-impregnate, etc. I am sure the various exact harms would differ in the different cases, depending on what got done to whom and why.) That court action could reasonably result in the woman absorbing the man’s share of the financial costs of child support, if she has the assets, or some other form of relief if she doesn’t. Sometimes there isn’t a good outcome possible; sometimes bad people do bad things and good people are relatively helpless. There might be no legal relief possible; you can’t get blood from Whitney Houston’s arm. (Too soon?)
But the good people don’t get to skip out on their clear-cut obligations just because they got fucked over (and not in the good way). Implicitly, the bi-parental obligation to born children is clear-cut regardless of the circumstances of the child’s birth, with a possible (and quite weak) exception for some types of pregnancy resulting from rape. Legal maneuvering seeking recompense for actual harms may legitimately partially or entirely zero out that obligation for one party in practical terms, but the moral obligation is there from day one, no questions asked, few questions possible.